No guarantees - kill SB 21

Posted: April 7, 2013 - 12:07am | Updated: April 8, 2013 - 12:07am

SB21, the oil tax bill, has no guarantees from the oil companies that they will produce more oil. For 5.5 billion dollars in reduced taxes, I would think all legislators would want a guarantee. Apparently some of them trust the oil companies more than I do.

Remember the disaster BP created in the Gulf of Mexico when the Deep Water Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers and creating one of the world’s largest environmental disasters.

The U.S. Coast Guard and federal regulators, “…found BP violated federal regulations, ignored crucial warnings and made bad decisions during the cementing of the well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico.”

Remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill? Exxon publicly promised to make things right but dragged the court case out until 1994 when a federal court ordered Exxon to pay $5 billion in punitive damages. Exxon continued to drag it out and 12 years later, in 2006, got it reduced to $2.5 billion. They then dragged it out for two more years and in 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court reduced it to $500 million, one-tenth of the original decision. People’s livelihoods were destroyed and claimants died before they were compensated for their losses.

Gov. Sean Parnell and some Alaska legislators trust the oil companies so much they are willing to give them $5.5 billion in reduced taxes with no strings attached when the oil companies have proven they are not to be trusted. Every Alaskan citizen should be outraged and contacting their legislators to tell them to kill SB 21.